Beaverton's Roy Johnston is Daily News Coach of the Year; Spencer Johnston is Player of the Year|

Dan Chalk chalk@mdn.net

Updated 6:30 am, Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Many fans recognize coach Roy Johnston as the face of Beaverton boys’ basketball, wearing his red sportcoat on game nights throughout the winter in the high school gym that’s already named after him.

But that’s not the whole story.

Spencer Johnston, Johnston’s grandson and the All-State guard on the basketball team, said what makes the coach special isn’t just the game of basketball.

“After a big win, Roy would make us cinnamon rolls,” said Spencer, who is the MDN’s Player of the Year after averaging 18.8 points and 7 assists per game en route to being named First Team All-State in Class C. “The first half hour of practice the next day, we would have a ball eating them.

And Beaverton fans will certainly remember this season for a long time. Roy Johnston is the Daily News Boys’ Basketball Coach of the Year.

He had a memorable season, which included guiding the Beavers to only their third unbeaten regular season in his 41 years as the head coach of the program. His final record was 24-1 and he was an All-State Honorable Mention for Class C Coach of the Year.

Johnston also picked up his 700th win as a boys’ coach — second all-time in state history — when the Beavers defeated Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart 69-47 on Feb. 25 in Beaverton.

The Beavers earned a No. 1 ranking early in the season, before settling at No. 2 in Class C behind Flint Beecher for most of the season. Beaverton went 14-0 in conference play to earn the Jack Pine Conference title, and won three games in district play to capture a Class C district title.

For the third straight year, the Beavers reached a regional final, where they lost to a McBain team that had a size advantage.

“I figured we had the chance to win the league and I knew we would be good,” Johnston said. “I thought we had a good chance of winning the district. But I knew if we ran into height, that would hurt us.”

For the past few years, Johnston, 73, has had the chance to coach three of his grandsons on the Beaverton team — brothers Grant, who graduated last year, Spencer, and Carter, who’s a sophomore. Johnston plans to coach at least until Carter graduates.

“It’s been his dream and his goal ever since they were little (to coach his grandsons),” said Johnston’s wife, Judy, who keeps the scorebook for every Beaverton game. “ ... I know he’s thankful that he was able to do it.

“I truly believe the boys have been as happy to play for Roy as he’s been happy to (coach) them,” she added.

Indeed, Spencer Johnston said he always looked forward to playing basketball for his grandfather.

“We’ve talked about it my whole life — about when I would get to play for Grandpa,” said Spencer, whose father, Jeff, also played basketball for Beaverton for Johnston in the 1980s.

When asked what he calls his coach during practices and games, Spencer said light-heartedly, “There are about four things I call him: ‘Roy,’ ‘Grandpa,’ ‘Coach,’ and ‘Hey You’ — whatever gets his attention.”

In terms of the game itself, Spencer said that while Roy hasn’t changed his game plan much over the years, he has always adapted to maximize the potential of the players he has in a given season.

“He turned a bunch of basketball players into really good players,” Spencer said of this year’s team. “He got us to play so well together. We have guys that can make certain shots from certain places on the floor, and he got those kids to shoot those shots.”

Johnston, who was once an assistant football coach at Beaverton, said he enjoys making an impact on kids as a coach.

“It’s just something I’ve always done,” he said. “(The reward) is just seeing them grow. The ones that stay in the area, you keep track of them and see how they’re doing. A lot of them stay and they’re good community members.”

Johnston grew up in the Croswell-Lexington area in the Thumb, where he played football, basketball and baseball and worked on both of his sets of grandparents’ nearby farms.

“It was a great educator. When I cleaned the chicken coops, I always figured there had to be something better than doing this the rest of my life,” he joked.

After graduating from Eastern Michigan University, Johnston taught and coached basketball for two years at Yale High School and two years at Howell High School, before coming to Beaverton, where in addition to coaching, he taught fifth grade for 29 years and was also assistant principal at the elementary school and athletics director at the high school.

Johnston, a father of five, is also a friend of Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo and visits the Spartans’ practice every year for a couple of days. He also watches Northwood and Central Michigan practices.